Customer Reviews

John F. Kennedy: A Biography

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The very thought astonishes: Almost 42 years have now passed since President John F. Kennedy was slain at age 46 by an assassin's bullet on that freeway entrance ramp in Dallas. To those of a certain age, it seems like only yesterday.

Is 42 years enough historical distance to allow an unbiased account of his life and his presidency? Michael O'Brien, a retired history professor from the University of Wisconsin and biographer of several other political figures from the recent past (Philip Hart, Theodore Hesburgh, Joseph McCarthy) has made the effort in this massive (905-page) account of Kennedy's life. It is detailed almost to the point of overwhelming the reader with data; it will probably --- perhaps this is a validation of O'Brien's effort at impartiality -- both please and outrage just about everyone, whether friend or foe of his subject.

O'Brien stresses Kennedy's insatiable thirst for information about every problem that came his way, his willingness to listen to everyone whose advice he thought might be worth hearing, and his decisiveness once his mind was made up. He also emphasizes Kennedy's tendency to allow political considerations to color important decisions and the wide gulf that often separated what really went on in his administration from what the public was deliberately led to believe.

One of the author's tactics is to assemble a motley chorus of historians, politicians, journalists and acquaintances whose on-the-record public comments tend to back up his own interpretations. Most of the time he will summarize all sides of an important question and then, in cases where controversy still persists, allow Kennedy the benefit of the doubt. For example, O'Brien concludes that Kennedy's Pulitzer-winning book PROFILES IN COURAGE was not entirely ghost-written, as his detractors have claimed, though it did benefit from the work of several other wordsmiths and researchers.

Questions of relative emphasis arise as one reads. Kennedy's lifelong history of serious illness is traced in great detail, as is also the influence on him of his imperious father and his ambitious brother Bobby, both important threads in Kennedy's story. But O'Brien gives equal if not greater weight to an exhaustive account of Kennedy's voracious sexual appetite, devoting several full chapters to it and threading it through other sections of his narrative as well. This seems overdone. It would be a shame if public perception of this truly probing and informative biography were to be based mainly on its laundry list of JFK's bed partners.

The 1963 assassination itself, too, is dispatched in a couple of pages at the very end of the book. Given O'Brien's penchant for thorough research and multiple interpretations of events, one wonders why he simply ignored the controversy around the event itself and its subsequent effect on world history.

One answer might be that no room could be found for such things in this behemoth of a book -- but room might well have been made if less space had been devoted to trivia about his sex life, his dinner parties, and whose job it was to cut his toenails.

The author's industrious digging, while often clogging his narrative with unnecessary detail, also turns up insightful quotations that sum up a situation in a few words (Jacqueline Kennedy on her husband's family: "They never relax, even when they're relaxing." A staffer on JFK: "I never heard of a President who wanted to know so much.").

O'Brien does not gloss over Kennedy's politically inspired reluctance to denounce Joseph McCarthy, the unprincipled Red-hunting Wisconsin demagogue, or his initial timidity in ducking a leadership role in the civil rights struggle --- but he does give JFK credit for later reversing himself on the latter issue. There is constant emphasis on the young President's wit, charm and youthful energy. One of O'Brien's chorus of historians sums up the author's own viewpoint: "To a large extent, his style was as important as his substance."

The book's size has caused the publisher to eliminate O'Brien's footnotes. If you want to consult them you can either go online to the publisher's website or write to the Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston. It might be worth the trouble.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn

My fascination with John F Kennedy comes from when I first saw him riding down Lehigh Avenue in Philadelphia in 1959 when I was 9 years old. He was running for president back then. After he became president I used to like watching him on TV verbally sparring with news reporters. What a difference in how the "powder-puffs" we have today on TV avoid, hide and pretend we have no problems. I'm definitely no Democrat but JFK had a lot more courage, intellegence and insight than most of who you see on the scene today in political arenas. He had a specail way of moving people to action that just doesn't seem to exist anymore. Hopefully someone else will eventually come along again like him who actually becomes an excellent president. Maybe someone like Sarah Polin?

I'm also a big fan of well-written biographies and found this book to be amazing. What I liked about this book is how different aspects of JFK's life were catagorized and separated so that you could gain a real insite to how John Kennedy must have looked at the world. I liked that the author did not spend very much time on his assassination since there are already too many theories, stories and legends about that unfortunate incident.

JFK appears to have been the consumate listener which to me is probably why he was so smart about common sense aspects. He listened and did not want to block that part of life out since it does make a positive difference. And yes he liked the ladies (he was so charasmatically attractive does that surprise anyone?) and he seems to have taken his job as president seriously. He often went to the people whenever he needed to really get an important point across. Had he remained president that wind-bag who took over, president Johnson, would have went back to his ranch in Texas instead of helping to kill so many young people during Viet Nam.

I recommend this book to anyone who wants to get a more realistic idea of who JFK was, what he was really about and what his principles really were.

Michael O'Brien's magisterial book offers a necessary rejoinder to the "Dark Side of Camelot" school of thought. While still criticizing Kennedy's reckless behavior, O'Brien presents Kennedy as a thoughtful and engaged politician with tangible accomplishments including arms control, civil rights, and tax policy. O'Brien explains how political realities limited Kennedy's ability to implement more liberal policies.

O'Brien aims for a comprehensive understanding of Kennedy and his political work, which includes addressing past writers. Consequently his length is understandable. Non-academic readers will appreciate that the book is not cluttered by footnotes, but scholars may find them on a website.

Michael O'Brien is to be commended for writing a lengthy, well-written tome at this late juncture on the late, great JFK, especially post-Robert Dallek's masterful "An Unfinished Life", a VERY hard act to follow, indeed. O'Brien's book is a worthy companionn to Dallek's and, while it treads a lot of familiar ground, it is worthwhile for all Kennedy fans. Get this!

Any biography should of course detail the subject's personal and public life and Micheal O'Brien's book is a healthy balance of both. I always thought I knew enough about JFK to consider myself well-informed. But my eyes were truly opened after reading "John F Kennedy - A Biography". The author pulls no punches. He lays bare all of JFK's faults and sins; accomplishments and rewards. In a nutshell, he makes JFK into what he really was, purely human. Just like the rest of us. A great read. Good on ya Mr. O'Brien!

I read this book after reading the Caro series on Lyndon Johnson and this book fell short of my expectations. I felt that too many facts and stories where thrown together without a supporting theme or purpose. Also, I thought a disproportionate amount of time was spent on Kennedy's private life.

This great biography was written by an academic historian who gathers and compares several sources, yet the publisher to cut costs cuts the footnotes, which are of essential and greatest interest. In our era of intellectual property and knowledge as commodity, the publisher did not wish to provide the reader with specific indications for further study through the footnotes. With the collapse of the Internet we may never know what amplifications and insights the author may have included in these footnotes, which were no doubt as exhaustive as the work itself. How could the once great St. Martin's have been so academically irresponsible for commercial purposes? It is as inexplicable as our once great nation's journey from the intelligent JFK to the solipsistic W.

This book on Kennedy is very well written and extremely informative. The details on his professional and personal life are intense. I highly recommend this book.

The 1960 election was one of the closest. John Kennedy was Catholic, and many voters were against him for that reason. Kennedy's critics still question whether the Vietnam War would have been fought had Nixon won. It may not have been. On the other hand, there may have been a nuclear war. We will never know. It is part of the controversy of those years. Kennedy is remembered for his moon speech to Congress in 1961: "I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth." In 1962, Kennedy confronted Khrushchev over Cuba. The U.S. could not allow Soviet missiles 100 miles off the Florida coast. John Kennedy and First Lady Jackie brought an elegance to the White House emulated by successors Ronald and Nancy Reagan. Kennedy's assassination in Dallas in 1963 is something America is still dealing with, like Pearl Harbor before it and 9/11 after it. Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he assassinated Kennedy. Conspiracy theories are false. The grassy knoll is a figment of the imagination. Oswald was a loner and a misfit. He was a marksman. He shot Kennedy from the 6th floor of the Texas School Book Depository as his motorcade passed below. He fled and hid in a theater but was quickly apprehended. Jack Ruby shot and killed Oswald. He said he did it out of sympathy for Jackie. There was no reason not to believe him.